About Me

My name is Pica. I live in Davis, California and I have another blog, Feathers of Hope, which I keep with my partner Numenius, and which isn't primarily about sketching birds. My ABA list stands at 697 702, which seems a fine time to start sketching birds instead of spending a fortune on a camera and lenses to start photographing them all... The first post from August 2007, detailing all this, can be found here.

Thursday October 24, 2013

Birds in the Oleander

! I’ve been working since July in a temporary building between the Domes and the student farm, both of which are unkempt paradises for birds. There’s an oleander right outside my south-facing window. I’ve been getting some birds perching in the shrub and looking in at me, as well as a Western fence lizard, which uses the insect screen as a super-highway.

The orange-crowned warblers are here in numbers just now and the sparrows are all coming in and singing, as they will all winter.

We are moving to a new building in a couple of weeks. It’s by the freeway, it’s in an industrial park and, well, it’s not unkempt. There will be fewer birds. But I’m taking my sketchbook along anyway…

Saturday September 28, 2013

Sketching at the Raptor Center

I led a small group at the Raptor Center this morning for Audubon. It was a beautiful morning and the miserable wind had died down.

split up and walked quietly around the center. I drew the great horned owl and as I was walking back to where the Harris’s hawk is a burrowing owl perched very close, looking up and all around.

As we were about to leave a turkey vulture landed on a snag between the Raptor Center and the creek. One of the volunteers said it was probably a bird they had recently released. We all sketched it for quite a while until it took off, joining a couple of soaring vultures.

Monday April 29, 2013

Say's Phoebe

Tuesday April 23, 2013

Western Kingbirds

The Western kingbirds have been in since before I got back to Davis. This evening I saw two pairs emerging from the trees on display flights and returning. They don’t seem to have been too bothered by the elm that blew down last night, taking the power lines with it, but I’m guessing a magpie nest or two has been destroyed… :(